So Now What? F.E.A.R.

Remember when Chicken Little was running all over the barn lot

and town, for that matter, exclaiming “the sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling”?

The entire town was thrown into a panic but they couldn’t find the piece of sky that hit him.

That is sorta how I feel about “Rona”.

Now hear me out.

I do believe that the Corona virus and Covid19 is a very real threat. We have at least seven friends that we know of who’ve had it. And of course, just like you, we’ve heard of many others.

So please don’t mistake what I’m saying that I don’t think it is real.

I do believe it is a real threat.

However, have you had to reel yourself in and talk yourself down off the edge of fear lately?

On a normal day, I’m a germaphobe.

(Please don’t breathe on me or touch things especially food without washing your hands FIRST. Don’t cough across my food or near my table in a restaurant. Don’t touch the rim of my drink. Don’t eat things that you drop on the floor. Don’t touch your face. Don’t cross contaminate things from one surface to the other and PLEASE don’t double dip in the salsa. Oh my silly me. )

For me the “grossness” of ALL THE GERMS was already established long before covid showed up. And I like to think that I’m an adult with common sense, so just because germs freak me out, I realized I couldn’t just sit in the bathtub filled with rubbing alcohol, waiting on the curve to flatten, as they say.

Well actually, that wasn’t possible anyway, because I couldn’t find rubbing alcohol anywhere. (OR toilet paper. But I digress.) Rubbing alcohol is a staple in our home. I buy 2 bottles at a time to disinfect surfaces and clean mirrors and glass and wash my hands…because eeeewwww, germs. And I only had 1/2 a bottle left when the hoarders started stockpiling. So no, sitting in the bathtub in rubbing alcohol wasn’t gonna happen, for more reasons than one.

Then the image of the virus floating through the air like bubbles from a bubble machine began to circulate through the wonderful world of social media.

Obviously, wedding and prom season and the work I do related to that has come to a screeching halt. Our land surveying business is considered essential. So we press on. Carefully, socially distancing and sterilizing as we go.

The other day, it was essential for me to go into a place of business for our land surveying business. I’m not gonna lie…my germaphobe tendencies and the images in my mind of the virus floating through the air just nearly put me out cold.

I’m not a person who panics. And I attempt to not act irrationally. So I sat in the SUV and almost drove away. But it had to be done. I had to go in. And I could run around throwing myself into a panic, by thinking I was inhaling and walking through clouds of invisible virus…just like Chicken Little.

I know if I was a nurse or doctor, I would care for my patients and not think twice about what needed to be done.

At that moment I had a choice to make, and I thought about F.E.A.R.

F false

E evidence

A appearing

R real

I knew I had to make the next best choice. So I thought through my exact path in and my interactions with the owner inside.

I told myself what I knew to be true: don’t touch my face, stay at least 6 feet from others, and wash my hands.

I told myself to not think about the exaggerated images in my mind that were causing fear.

AND I prayed.

What are you doing to overcome fear during this time?